Calling for an end to the panoply of loopholes and deductions in the federal tax code, U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La. found himself Monday in the rare position of echoing a similar plea from President Barack Obama. But that parallel between the two diametric politicians was short-lived, as Vitter later chided the president for not pushing for specific tax reforms.

T-P archiveDavid Vitter

"The president says he supports it, but he's never introduced -- he's never had a specific plan saying let's do it," Vitter said during a town hall meeting in Elmwood. "He's never taken a leadership role in it."

Despite emphasizing his stance on tax reform, curbing federal spending and increasing domestic energy production, Vitter instead waded through free-wheeling questions that mostly coalesced around illegal immigration and reforming Social Security. His appearance in the Jefferson Parish Council chamber was the latest stop on his biennial town hall tour of Louisiana's 64 parishes. Jefferson was Vitter's town hall meeting No. 38 since the 112th Congress began this year.

John Kelly of Metairie drew the first instance of applause when he said illegal immigrants have an easier time reaping federal benefits than many U.S. citizens. And he found a sympathetic ear in Vitter, whose call for stronger federal enforcement of immigration laws took on a partisan tone.

"Liberals don't want to enforce the law. Liberals want it to continue and that's the fight we're up against," he said.

"The problem is there are too many people in Washington who don't want to fix the problem, who have a political agenda, who benefit from more illegals coming, particularly if they eventually get amnesty and can vote," Vitter said.

Calling the United States "the single most energy-rich country in the world, bar none," Vitter made a familiar push to open up more land and the Gulf of Mexico "whole hog" to extract oil and other fuels.

"The problem is we're the only country in the world that takes 95 percent of those resources and puts them off-limits and passes many goofy federal laws that say you can't do much in the eastern Gulf, you can't do anything off the Atlantic Coast, can't do anything off the Pacific Coast, very little if anything offshore Alaska, nothing in ANWR, the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge," he said. "So we need to get government out of the way and open up those energy resources, which we could do in a responsible, environmentally sound way."

Warding off questions of a few critics, Vitter spent roughly an hour with the mostly sympathetic crowd.

Kelly, who had raised his concerns about illegal immigration, said afterward he was satisfied with what he heard. Vitter's town hall meeting "informed the people about his values and allowed people to vent frustrations," he said, "whether you agreed with him or not."